Association of ATP and WTA - what was there?
In the spring, the cheers were great when a joint men's and women's tour was in the room. However, it currently seems a long way from that. Now the joint official app is also disappearing.
by Florian Goosmann
last edit: Dec 26, 2020, 01:38 pm
Roger Federer had set the wave rolling. He is currently considering, said Federer on April 22nd via Twitter , whether he is the only one of the opinion that men's and women's tennis should merge? Specifically: that the ATP and WTA should unite.
The reaction to Federer's tweet was immense: Rafael Nadal agreed, and Billie Jean King said that the WTA alone was always only Plan B, a common voice for everyone but their actual vision.
Serena Williams hinted that something was going on in the background before Federer's tweet, and that conversations had already taken place in Melbourne.
Uniformity for the fan
The idea behind it all: more uniformity, a more logical tournament calendar, more joint events like in Indian Wells or Miami - tennis should finally present itself as a whole, more fan-friendly. At best with an official contact point, a website, a uniform channel for live tennis.
The corona break seemed almost the logical time to continue the relevant discussions, after all, there were no tournaments from mid-March to early August. If not now then when?
Apparently nothing happened. On the contrary. Both tours came back from the corona shutdown on different dates, and while the ATP in autumn, after the French Open, still offered a reasonably full calendar, including the ATP Finals in London, there was only one tournament for the women in October (Ostrava) and one in November (Linz). The WTA slept through a joint event in Cologne, at least one after the other, so that the mattress tournament on the Rhine decided to hold two men's tournaments in two weeks - with a strong response.
The WTA only drew attention to itself by simplifying its tournament categories , which had now dragged on for several years, from the first intention to completion it was at least five years. After all, from 2021 women will also use the categories "WTA 1000", "WTA 500", "WTA 250" and "WTA 125" instead of the obscure jumble of "Premier Mandatory", "Premier 5", "Premier" and "International". Why the winner points are not distributed accordingly (1000 for winners of the 1000 tournaments, 500 for those of the 500 ...), as the ATP does, remains a secret.
Here everything should stay the same, for some 1000 tournaments there will be 1000 points (for the former "Mandatory" tournaments), for others 900 (the former "Premier 5"), for 500 tournaments only 470 points ( the former "Premier" tournaments) and for the new 250s now 280 points (the former international tournaments).
Popular ATP / WTA app disappears
A slap in the face for all fans now a series of tweets about Christmas, which one got to read - at least with identical wording from ATP and WTA: "ATP and WTA have announced the discontinuation of the ATP / WTA Live Scores app", was called it. You were referred to the ATP app and wtatennis.com.
The news caused astonishment among fans and players. Rightly so, especially since the official alternatives are hardly any. The ATP app is overloaded, the WTA has no product of its own on the market. And the now discontinued ATP / WTA Live Scores app was exactly what a fan wanted - a small, fast app without unnecessary bells and whistles, with a focus on the essentials: live scores, game plans, draws, statistics, ranking lists, tournament calendar.
"Boooooooooo", commented Madison Keys, "Why is it so hard to just enjoy tennis", wrote another user on Twitter. If you want to track tennis results on the official platforms (including official statistics, game plans, etc.), you would need nine apps: one for the ATP, one each for the Grand Slam tournaments, one for the Davis Cup, the Fed Cup, the Olympic Games, the ITF World Tennis Tour. And the link to the WTA.
Tennis fan Roger Federer has not yet responded to this issue. Of a possible rapprochement or even a timely merger between ATP and WTA? However, it seems far away at the moment.